hand. In the exftacy of admiring what is not our own, we forget the good things that have long been in our poffeffion.

To speak without a figure.-Italy has long been called the garden of Europe, and to young men of fortune, the defire of vifiting this garden is irrefiftible. Home becomes to them a prifon, fo delightfully inviting does foreign parts appear to them at a distance: nor are their parents ever suffered to be at peace till they grant permiffion to them to go thither. "I could not fleep in quiet, faid once to me a gentleman of great ingenuoufnels of difpofition: I fickened at the appearance of every object around me: I became peevish, fretful and difcontented, till my father was prevailed on to allow me to go to Italy. I travelled thither in anxious expectation of charms I never found; and after having spent a twelvemonth without having got a found fleep, from having been conftantly eaten up with vermin, ftewed with heat, and involved in naftiness, from which it was impoffible to escape, I was happy at laft to be permitted to return to that unhofpitable region, as I once thought it, which gave me birth, where I have fince experienced, both as to climate, food, and cleanlinefs, a kind of fatisfaction that I never could feel in thofe enchanting regions fo much famed in claffic ftory, which had made fuch a lively impreffion on my youth. ful imagination." The perfon who faid this is a fen fible man; and what he said, made fuch an impreffion on my mind, as to have occafioned these reflections.

Grapes, oranges, melons, figs, and pine-apples, are without all difpute delicate fruits, that are highly grateful to the palate. But fuch things as thefe, in any country, can form but a small fhare of the food and fuftenance of the people. Were they even capable of yielding a fubftantial nourishment, they could not be taken in fufficient quantity for the purpose: the very poignancy of their flavour prevents it. By frequent ufe, they would cloy the palate, and become naufeous La

to the ftomach; thefe, therefore, are delicacies which can only be prized where they are scarce, and must be difregarded as ufelefs fuperfluities, where they are plenty. Such things, therefore, are imaginary goods, rather than real bleffings. It is articles of food only, that can give one country a decided advantage above another in this respect: and how ftands the balance between temperate climates and warmer regions in regard to this particular?

In place of those few exotic fruits, which we cannot rear in perfection, without artificial heat, we have others of our own, not perhaps inferior to these either in delicacy or nutricious quality. But allowing their fruits the pre-eminence they claim, we have in their stead, wheat, rye, barley, oats, potatoes, and innumerable legumes, roots, and garden-plants, in fuch abundance, as to fupply the inhabitants with the certainty of obtaining a healthy nourishing repast at all times. And if, in warm climates, these things alfo, can, in fome measure, be obtained; yet, in respect to the more invigorating viands of beef, mutton, lamb, and veal, they fall infinitely behind us. The genial temperature of our fummer heats ferve to clothe our plants with a rich and lasting verdure, which affords a never-failing plenty of fucculent food, that gives to the flesh of our domeftic animals, a tender juicyness that the inhabitants of warmer climates never know. There, the thirsty fields, parched up by the overpowerful influence of the fummer fun, exhibit fcarce a blade of grafs. All is dry and withered. The cattle, ftinted for food, inftead of beef, afford, when brought to the shambles, a kind of sticky flesh, more like a dried ham, than any thing elfe. Milk too, that luxurious delicacy which nature hath granted in abundance to the loweft of our people, is there to be had only in scanty quantities, at a high price; and butter is fcarcely known. Let an honeft Englishman look at his well

ftored larder, and then say, if he would exchange it for all the oranges and melons that Italy can afford *.

In refpect of fuftenance, therefore, we have no reafon to complain of our lot, when compared with that of warmer regions.

Let us next state the parallel in respect to health, and perfonal enjoyments.

Man was evidently intended for labour. He muft earn his bread by the fweat of his brow. But with the bread he thus earns, he likewife earns a more invaluable bleffing, health, and an appetite to relish that food. Whatever gives health and vigour to the body, gives energy and activity to the mind. But labour gives this vigour; and cold, to a certain degree, infpires a tafte for labour. Happy above all others, then, are the inhabitants of temperate climates, where the regions verge towards cold. Labour to them becomes pleasant; activity constitutes the bafis of their recreations; health of body and vigour of mind are the confequences. Shall we then complain, because heaven hath caft our lot in a region of this nature!

But fetting future confequences afide, let us look only towards the enjoyment of the prefent hour. At

* The following notices are taken from Walker's Travels, (p. 300.) lately published. "We call Italy the garden of the world; I can by no means think it fo. The climate is certainly a happy medium between the torrid and frigid zones; rather warmer, indeed, than an English conftitution can well bear. But the foil bears no grafs, and, of course, their beef, mutton, &c. is wretched. Venison, they have little or none, and what they have, we should esteem carrion in England. Their fowls are a nuifance in the streets of Rome; yet I have never feen a large or a fat fowl in Italy. The fish from the Mediterranean are very good; fine lobsters, plaice, fardines, mullets, &c. The bread is chiefly of Indian corn, dark-coloured and tough. Butter they have none, an Englishman can eat. The pork they brag much of, but I have feen none yet I could eat; and the wild boars I have had no defire of tafting. All this may be rooted and inveterate prejudice. I have certainly come too late in life to Italy; my habits are too much established to conform to innovation in demeftic matters; but yet few, I believe, who ever come hither, have enjoyed the curiosities of it more than I have done.

certain seasons of the year, we feel the cold, in fome respects, feverer than we could wish; but how easy is it to guard against it? An additional fold of cloathing, a little more exercife, a warm pair of gloves, a good fire, effectually drive away every uneafy fenfation refulting from this caufe; and how few perfons are there, that cannot command one or all of these remedies? But in warmer regions, how can the oppreffive power of heat be overcome? The direct rays of the fun, acting in certain cafes on the head, fometimes prove the caufe of death, as inftant and certain as the ftroke of a bul let. The parching wind, called firocco, ftifles the unhappy traveller, who is furprised by it at a distance from fhelter. The poisonous nature of its effects are expe rienced even in the inmoft receffes of the best conftructed palaces. A feverish languor creeps through every vein; and univerfal fickness prevails.-Even when these effects are not experienced in this degree, it becomes extremely difficult to remove that langour and that uneafy fenfation, which always accompanies a too high degree of heat upon the human frame. The clothes that are neceffary to prevent the fun from bliftering the skin, become a load that cannot be easily born; and at night, when the body, exhausted by the languid fatigues of the day, feeks for repose, it often feeks for it in vain. Unquiet flumbers, the usual attendants of too much heat, are ever and anon disturbed by the bum of infects; the bite of fleas, which no human effort can banish; and the crawling of other vermin :-In vain are the bed-poft put into dishes of water to prevent the infects from afcending; fome overleap the mound; others mount up by their wings.-All night long the attention is called off by fome one or other of these disagreeable objects; which, to a person who has not been accustomed to them, presents to the imagination the most disgusting ideas. At laft the exhausted watcher drops into a kind of flumber; he dreams; a gentle compref fion about his neck, fuggests the idea that it is the arm

of the nymph he loves. He enjoys for a moment the luxurious idea of being embraced by the idol of his heart. He awakes; but judge of his surprise, when instead of the arm of his mistress, he finds it is a fnake that has entwined itself about his neck! Are these the pleasures we pant after? Are these the joys for which we difpife our own comfortable home, where, after the head is laid upon the pillow, nothing can difturb repofe, that does not proceed from the mind of guilt or anxious care?

I will not difguft the reader with a longer detail of the disagreeable effects that refult to the human frame in warm climates. I will not fhock him with a minute enumeration of the ravages produced at times by locufts and flies; by which whole nations have been nearly exterminated, and extenfive regions, abandoned by man, left as a habitation for reptiles of the vileft fort; for even the strongest and the fierceft animals, have been obliged to migrate from the regions where they abound. I will not dwell upon the horrors that have arifen from the bite of vipers, fnakes, centipedes, tarantulas, and other poisonous animals. I will not enumerate the ravages that are too often produced in these climates by hail, and thunder and tornados. It is enough for me barely to mention, that these are ills, to which every inhabitant of these happy regions, as we have been accustomed to think them, are for ever expofed. Leaving these dreary scenes, I would wish to turn the attention of the reader to the delightful ferenity that every inhabitant of Britain must have experienced in a focial walk, during a fine evening in the fummer months. Nothing that depends upon climate, or the effects of external air can equal it; temperate without heat; ferene without glare; peaceful without gloom. Every object in nature feems to vie with another, which fhall adminifter in the most perfect manner to gratify the fenfes and to calm the mind. Thus the